For as long as there’s been an Amazon, authors have checked on sales activity for books from the privacy of laptops and PCs. Before that, the truly determined needed to work up the courage to call their agents. All of that’s about to change with the debut of a new market intelligence dashboard from self-publishing pioneers Vook.

“Author Control is the next step in our vision to empower authors with the best digital publishing services and the right data,” Matthew Cavnar, Vook co-founder, tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “Authors now can get the complete picture of their sales across the major retail channels in one dashboard, helping them take control of their publishing initiatives.”

With the e-publishing revolution well upon us, authors have greater responsibilities than ever before – and a corresponding need to know much more about the book business, and in real time if possible. What authors want, says Cavnar, is data — coming from multiple sales platforms, and open to analysis.

Vook’s Author Control makes it possible to track sales and unit downloads in Amazon, Amazon KDP, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Nook Press, Kobo Writing Life, CreateSpace, Smashwords, Google, and Samsung, and will display the results in a secure, easy-to-use online and mobile-accessible dashboard. Last month, Vook acquired Booklr, a real-time data and analytics service provider for authors and publishers